Euro 2008 bid hit by stadia issue

SFA chief David Taylor: "We gave it our best shot"

The Scotland-Ireland bid to host the Euro 2008 soccer championships is said to have failed on three counts.

At a Uefa ceremony in Geneva, the Austria-Switzerland bid was announced as the winner with the Scottish-Irish submission coming fourth out of seven.

Scottish Football Association chief executive David Taylor insisted they had given it their "best shot".

What went wrong?
Click here to have your say

An unnamed source on Uefa's bids inspection team said the unresolved question of which stadia would be used in Dublin was one of the reasons for the failure.

The team member said: "The Scotland and Ireland bid failed on three counts.

"The first was the concentration of too many stadia in only three cities.

Inspection team

"The second was the perceived lack of political unity for the Irish Government and the third was the unresolved question of which stadiums would be used in Dublin.

"Other bids had the stadium question completely resolved. The Scotland/Ireland bid did not."

The inspection team's decision not to include Scotland-Ireland in the four forwarded to the executive committee for final consideration effectively ranked the bid alongside outsiders Russia and Bosnia-Croatia.

The moment of defeat for Scotland and Ireland

Minutes after the decision was made public, Mr Taylor said: "I extend our congratulations to an excellent bid from our friends in Austria and Switzerland.

"We are proud to have been a part of this process. We put forward the best possible bid from Scotland and Ireland and we really gave it our best shot."

Mr Taylor said it was now Scotland's task to qualify for the tournament he promised that the nation would bring "many thousands" of fans to the tournament.

Marketing director Simon Lyons expressed disappointment at the outcome.

He said: "It was a fair fight but Austria and Switzerland were always thought to be favourites and in this case that has turned out to be true."

'Back on map'

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell said: "The fans who have backed us so solidly in this campaign would have made this festival of football the best ever.

"This is a bit like being 4-0 down at half-time, getting three goals in the second half, lots of pressure in the last 10 minutes and not quite getting there.

"But Scotland is back on the map of international sporting events."

The celtic slogan was "We Can"

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said he was naturally very disappointed that the joint bid was unsuccessful.

"A tremendous amount of effort was made in Ireland and Scotland to secure the championships and great credit is due to all concerned," he said.

UK Sport chairman Sir Rodney Walker said: "It is important that the UK learns from this experience and continues to give itself the best possible chance of staging the world's largest sports events on home soil."

UK Sport supported Scotland and Ireland's joint bid with £320,000 of lottery funding from the World Class Events Programme.

Economic boost

It was estimated a successful bid for the world's third largest sporting event would have generated about £50m for the local economies and created more than 7,000 jobs.

News conferences are planned for Friday in Glasgow and Dublin.

Ireland's Sport Minister John O'Donoghue rejected suggestions the bid was undermined by the stadia debate.

Scenes of joy for the winners

"Naturally we were not able to give an absolute guarantee in relation to Croke Park," he said. "We could merely set out the factual position.

"But the reality of the situation is that the bid did not fail because of Ireland. Ireland supported the bid all the way home."

But Jimmy Deenihan, sports spokesman for Ireland's opposition party Fine Gael, blamed uncertainty over stadia.

Future bids

Scottish National Party leader John Swinney said: "Clearly, I am very disappointed that the Euro 2008 tournament will not be coming to Scotland but I am far from disheartened.

"Scotland has won very many friends and has been able to compete on the world stage.

"This time it has not been enough and we must now build support for future bids.

The Scottish Tories' sports spokesman Brian Monteith said a golden opportunity had been "squandered".

"Months of dither and delay from the Scottish Government has culminated in the bid hitting the buffers," he added.